Nearly 2 Million Have Dropped Insurance in 2017: Gallup

Rich Daly, HFMA Senior Writer/Editor

Some have blamed the uptick on weak enforcement of the individual mandate, while the Trump administration warned about declining choices and rising premiums in the individual-insurance market.

July 10—Nearly 2 million Americans have lost or dropped insurance coverage so far in 2017, according to a new national
poll.

Since the end of 2016, the uninsured rate increased by 0.8 percentage points to 11.7 percent of the population, according to a tracking poll by Gallup and Sharecare. It had previously reached a record low of 10.9 percent in the third and fourth quarters of 2016.

The poll consisted of 45,087 interviews with U.S. adults from April 1 to June 30. Even with the recent increase, the uninsured rate was still 6.3 percentage points lower than the peak rate of 18 percent in the third quarter of 2013.

“There has been a little bit of the loss of the progress from what we have seen from 2013 through 2015, but it’s not dramatic,” said Benjamin Sommers, MD, PhD, associate professor of Health Policy and Economics at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) insurance marketplaces opened and Medicaid expansion began in October 2013, while the individual mandate required most Americans to have coverage or pay a tax penalty starting in 2014.

The recent increase in the uninsured rate followed a mid-2016 stall of a decline spanning several years.

“This is consistent with the notion that the coverage gains under the ACA for the time being have hit a floor,” Sommers said in an interview. As to whether the findings are the beginning of an upward trend in the uninsured rate, Sommers said, “It’s too early to say.”

Why the Increase?

The reasons behind the recent uptick in the uninsured rate remain unclear.

“Most likely, this suggests that, in part, the uncertainty about what’s going to happen with the [ACA] is having some trickle-down effects, in particular when you look at what is happening with the coverage in the non-group market,” Sommers said.

Some have blamed the drop-off in 2017 individual-insurance enrollment on a lack of enthusiasm among the Trump administration for either promoting enrollment or enforcing the ACA’s individual mandate.

“The combination of higher premiums and the lack of enforcement of the individual mandate almost certainly has contributed a lot to that,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president, American Action Forum. “It makes everything harder in terms of stabilizing those markets.”

Gallup found the biggest coverage declines this year occurred among those with individual-market coverage, followed by those with employer-sponsored insurance. The decrease among the latter group runs counter to employer surveys by Mercer, which found that the share of employers who say
they are likely to terminate health plans within the next five years declined from 19 percent in 2012 to 14 percent in 2016 among smaller employers and from 7 percent to 2 percent among large employers.

“There was a drop in employers offering coverage to PTEs (employees working fewer than 30 hours/week) from 2015 to 2016,” Beth Umland, a partner and director of research for Mercer, said. “Some employers did the math and found that their low-paid part-time employers could do better on the
exchange (qualifying for a subsidy or even Medicaid in the Medicaid expansion states) than in an employer plan, so they dropped the PTE plan.”

Additionally, fewer employers have offered retiree health plans due to the availability of marketplace plans.

Other analysts see spiking premiums and declining insurance plan options leading fewer to sign up for individual coverage.

“It’s hard to blame [the administration] too much for what’s going on in the underlying marketplace; they haven’t really done that much since they’ve been in there,” said James Capretta, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “The more probable explanation is a resettling
about where the equilibrium is going to be under existing law based on the level of insurance premiums people are willing to pay.”

Some support for that view was seen in Gallup’s finding that the biggest insurance coverage decreases have occurred among the so-called young invincibles (ages 18 to 34), who are the most sensitive to premium increases.

That challenge could worsen in 2018 following the administration’s July 10 announcement of a 38 percent decrease in the number of insurers submitting plans to sell policies next year in the federally operated ACA marketplaces.

Tom Price, MD, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a written statement that the decrease would further limit consumer choices of insurers and providers, and underscored the need for legislative action.

“Congress must act now to repair the damage Obamacare has inflicted and put in place a patient-centered system that is responsive to the needs of individuals and families, not the demands of Washington,” Price said.

Impact on the Policy
Debate

It is unclear whether the latest jump in the uninsured rate will affect the ongoing debate over whether to repeal and replace parts of the ACA. The reported increase in the number of uninsured followed estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that 22 to 23 million fewer Americans
would have coverage under the House and Senate healthcare reform proposals.

“When you’re already being tagged and blamed for projecting to cause 20 million-plus people to lose coverage, no one notices 2 million,” said Thomas Miller, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute “That’s not consequential to the larger issue if you are buying in to the larger projection.”

The impact of the latest coverage totals on the debate over ACA repeal will likely depend on the upcoming CBO projections of the latest tweaks to the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), said Holtz-Eakin, who is a former CBO director.

At this point, it does not appear that Senate Republicans are going to get the 50 votes needed for passage of the BCRA, Miller said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch “McConnell has a tough job in front of him of trying to get people to stay on board what looks like a sinking ship,” Miller said.

But Holtz-Eakin said Republicans still face a “need to get it done” scenario based on promises to their political base.

“They have to somehow deliver on a bunch of different promises, and that’s going to override any reservations they have with it,” Holtz-Eakin said in an interview.

Some have blamed the uptick on weak enforcement of the individual mandate, while the Trump administration warned about declining choices and rising premiums in the individual-insurance market.

July 10—Nearly 2 million Americans have lost or dropped insurance coverage so far in 2017, according to a new national
poll.

Since the end of 2016, the uninsured rate increased by 0.8 percentage points to 11.7 percent of the population, according to a tracking poll by Gallup and Sharecare. It had previously reached a record low of 10.9 percent in the third and fourth quarters of 2016.

The poll consisted of 45,087 interviews with U.S. adults from April 1 to June 30. Even with the recent increase, the uninsured rate was still 6.3 percentage points lower than the peak rate of 18 percent in the third quarter of 2013.

“There has been a little bit of the loss of the progress from what we have seen from 2013 through 2015, but it’s not dramatic,” said Benjamin Sommers, MD, PhD, associate professor of Health Policy and Economics at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) insurance marketplaces opened and Medicaid expansion began in October 2013, while the individual mandate required most Americans to have coverage or pay a tax penalty starting in 2014.

The recent increase in the uninsured rate followed a mid-2016 stall of a decline spanning several years.

“This is consistent with the notion that the coverage gains under the ACA for the time being have hit a floor,” Sommers said in an interview. As to whether the findings are the beginning of an upward trend in the uninsured rate, Sommers said, “It’s too early to say.”

Why the Increase?

The reasons behind the recent uptick in the uninsured rate remain unclear.

“Most likely, this suggests that, in part, the uncertainty about what’s going to happen with the [ACA] is having some trickle-down effects, in particular when you look at what is happening with the coverage in the non-group market,” Sommers said.

Some have blamed the drop-off in 2017 individual-insurance enrollment on a lack of enthusiasm among the Trump administration for either promoting enrollment or enforcing the ACA’s individual mandate.

“The combination of higher premiums and the lack of enforcement of the individual mandate almost certainly has contributed a lot to that,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president, American Action Forum. “It makes everything harder in terms of stabilizing those markets.”

Gallup found the biggest coverage declines this year occurred among those with individual-market coverage, followed by those with employer-sponsored insurance. The decrease among the latter group runs counter to employer surveys by Mercer, which found that the share of employers who say
they are likely to terminate health plans within the next five years declined from 19 percent in 2012 to 14 percent in 2016 among smaller employers and from 7 percent to 2 percent among large employers.

“There was a drop in employers offering coverage to PTEs (employees working fewer than 30 hours/week) from 2015 to 2016,” Beth Umland, a partner and director of research for Mercer, said. “Some employers did the math and found that their low-paid part-time employers could do better on the
exchange (qualifying for a subsidy or even Medicaid in the Medicaid expansion states) than in an employer plan, so they dropped the PTE plan.”

Additionally, fewer employers have offered retiree health plans due to the availability of marketplace plans.

Other analysts see spiking premiums and declining insurance plan options leading fewer to sign up for individual coverage.

“It’s hard to blame [the administration] too much for what’s going on in the underlying marketplace; they haven’t really done that much since they’ve been in there,” said James Capretta, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “The more probable explanation is a resettling
about where the equilibrium is going to be under existing law based on the level of insurance premiums people are willing to pay.”

Some support for that view was seen in Gallup’s finding that the biggest insurance coverage decreases have occurred among the so-called young invincibles (ages 18 to 34), who are the most sensitive to premium increases.

That challenge could worsen in 2018 following the administration’s July 10 announcement of a 38 percent decrease in the number of insurers submitting plans to sell policies next year in the federally operated ACA marketplaces.

Tom Price, MD, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a written statement that the decrease would further limit consumer choices of insurers and providers, and underscored the need for legislative action.

“Congress must act now to repair the damage Obamacare has inflicted and put in place a patient-centered system that is responsive to the needs of individuals and families, not the demands of Washington,” Price said.

Impact on the Policy
Debate

It is unclear whether the latest jump in the uninsured rate will affect the ongoing debate over whether to repeal and replace parts of the ACA. The reported increase in the number of uninsured followed estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that 22 to 23 million fewer Americans
would have coverage under the House and Senate healthcare reform proposals.

“When you’re already being tagged and blamed for projecting to cause 20 million-plus people to lose coverage, no one notices 2 million,” said Thomas Miller, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute “That’s not consequential to the larger issue if you are buying in to the larger projection.”

The impact of the latest coverage totals on the debate over ACA repeal will likely depend on the upcoming CBO projections of the latest tweaks to the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), said Holtz-Eakin, who is a former CBO director.

At this point, it does not appear that Senate Republicans are going to get the 50 votes needed for passage of the BCRA, Miller said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch “McConnell has a tough job in front of him of trying to get people to stay on board what looks like a sinking ship,” Miller said.

But Holtz-Eakin said Republicans still face a “need to get it done” scenario based on promises to their political base.

“They have to somehow deliver on a bunch of different promises, and that’s going to override any reservations they have with it,” Holtz-Eakin said in an interview.

HFMA RESOURCE LIBRARY

Patient financial engagement is more challenging than ever – and more critical. With patient responsibility as a percentage of revenue on the rise, providers have seen their billing-related costs and accounts receivable levels increase. If increasing collection yield and reducing costs are a priority for your organization, the metrics outlined in this presentation will provide the framework you need to understand what’s working and what’s not, in order to guide your overall patient financial engagement initiatives and optimize results.

No two patients are the same. Each has a very personal healthcare experience, and each has distinct financial needs and preferences that have an impact on how, when and if they chose to pay their healthcare bill. It’s no longer effective to apply static billing techniques to solve the complex challenge of collecting balances from patients. The need to tailor financial conversations and payment options to individual needs and preferences is critical. This presentation provides 10 recommendations that will not only help you improve payment performance through a more tailored approach, but take control of rising collection costs.

This white paper, written by Apex Vice President of Solutions and Services, Carrie Romandine, discusses the importance of patient segmentation and messaging specifically related to the patient revenue cycle. Applying strategic messaging that is tailored to each patient type will not only better educate consumers on payment options specific to their billing needs, but it will maximize the amount collected before sending to collections. Further, targeted messaging should be applied across all points of patient interaction (i.e. point of service, customer service, patient statements) and analyzed regularly for maximized results.

This white paper, written by Apex President Patrick Maurer, discusses methods to increase patient adoption of online payments. Providers are now seeking ways to incrementally collect more payments due from patients as well as speeding up the rate of collections. This white paper shows why patient-centric approaches to online payment portals are important complements to traditional provider-centric approaches.

Increased electronic engagement between healthcare providers and patients provides significant opportunities for improving revenue cycle metrics and encouraging patients to access EHRs. This article, written by Apex Founder and CEO Brian Kueppers, explores a number of strategies to create synergy between patient billing, online payment portals and electronic health record (EHR) software to realize a high ROI in speed to payment, patient satisfaction and portal adoption for meaningful use.

Faced with a rising tide of bad debt, a large Southeastern healthcare system was seeing a sharp decline in net patient revenues. The need to improve collections was dire. By integrating critical tools and processes, the health system was able to increase online payments and improve its financial position. Taking a holistic approach increased overall collection yield by 10% while costs came down because the number of statements sent to patients fell by 10%, which equated to a $1.3M annualized improvement in patient cash over a six-month period. This case study explains how.

To maintain fiscal fitness and boost patient satisfaction and loyalty, healthcare providers need visibility into when and how much they will be paid–by whom–and the ability to better navigate obstacles to payment. They need payment clarity. This whitepaper illuminates this concept that is winning fans at forward-thinking hospitals.

Financial services staff are always looking for ways to improve the verification, billing and collections processes, and Munson Healthcare is no different. Read about how they streamlined the billing process to produce cleaner bills on the front end and helped financial services staff collect more than $1 million in additional upfront annual revenue in one year.

Effective revenue cycle management can be a challenge for any hospital, but for smaller providers it is even tougher. Read how Wallace Thomson identified unreimbursed procedures, streamlined claims management, and improved its ability to determine charity eligibility.

Before launching an energy-efficiency initiative, it’s important to build a solid business case and understand the funding options and potential incentives that are available. Healthcare leaders should consider taking the steps outlined in the whitepaper to ease the process of gaining approval, piloting, implementing, and supporting sustainability projects. You will find that investing in sustainability and energy efficiency helps hospitals add cash to their bottom line. Discover how hospitals and health systems have various options for funding energy-efficient and renewable-energy initiatives, depending on their current financial structure and strategy.

Health care is a dynamic mergers and acquisitions market with numerous hospitals and health systems contemplating or pursuing formal arrangements with other entities. These relationships often pose a strategic benefit, such as enhancing competencies across the continuum, facilitating economies of scale, or giving the participants a competitive advantage in a crowded market. Underpinning any profitable acquisition is a robust capital planning strategy that ensures an organization reserves sufficient funds and efficiently onboards partners that advance the enterprise mission and values.

The success of healthcare mergers, acquisitions, and other affiliations is predicated in part on available capital, and the need for and sources of funding are considerations present throughout the partnering process, from choosing a partner to evaluating an arrangement’s capital needs to selecting an integration model to finding the right money source to finance the deal. This whitepaper offers several strategies that health system leaders have used to assess and manage capital needs for their growing networks.

Announcements from several commercial payers and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) early in 2015 around increased efforts to form value-based contracts with providers seemed to point to an impending rise in risk-based contracting. Rather than wait for disruption from the outside in, health care providers are now making inroads on collaborating with payers on various risk-based contracting models to increase the value of health care from within.

Yuma Regional Medical Center (YRMC) is a not-for-profit hospital serving a population of roughly 200,000 in Yuma and the surrounding communities.
Before becoming a ZirMed client, Yuma was attempting to manually monitor hundreds of thousands of charges which led to significant charge capture leakage. Learn how Yuma & ZirMed worked together to address underlying collections issues at the front end, thus increasing Yuma’s overall bottom line.

Kindred Hospital Rehabilitation Services works with partners to audit the market and the facility’s role in that market to identify opportunities for improvement. This approach leads to successes; Kindred’s clinical rehab and management expertise complements our partners’ strengths. Every facility and challenge is unique, and requires a full objective analysis.

Qualified coders are getting harder to come by, and even the most seasoned professional can struggle with the complexity of ICD-10. This 5-Minute White Paper Briefing explains how partnerships can help improve coding and other key RCM operations potentially at a cost savings.

The point of managing your revenue cycle isn’t just to improve revenue and cash flow. It’s to do those things effectively by consistently following best practices— while spending as little time, money, and energy on them as possible.

The reasons claims are denied are so varied that managing denials can feel like chasing a thousand different tails. This situation is not surprising given that a hypothetical denial rate of just 5 percent translates to tens of thousands of denied claims per year for large hospitals—where real‐world denial rates often range from 12 to 22 percent. Read about how predictive modeling can detect meaningful correlations across claims denials data.

Emergency Mobile Health Care (EMHC) was founded to be and remains an exclusively locally owned and operated emergency medical service organization; today EMHC serves a population of more than a million people in and around Memphis, answering 75,000 calls each year.

Since the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) introduction, CMS has paid more than $100 million in bonus payments to participants. However, these bonuses ended in 2015; providers who successfully meet the reporting requirements in 2016 will avoid the 2% negative payment adjustment in 2018, so now is the time to act! Included in this whitepaper are implications of increasing patient responsibility, collections best practices, and collections and internal control solutions.

Getting paid what your physician deserves—that’s the goal of every biller. Yet even for the best billers, achieving that success can be elusive when denials stand in the way of success, presenting challenges at every turn. Denials aren’t going away, but you can learn techniques to manage and even prevent them.Join practice management expert Elizabeth W. Woodcock, MBA, FACMPE, CPC, to: Discover methods to translate denial data into business intelligence to improve your bottom line, determine staff productivity benchmarks for billers, and recognize common mistakes in denial management.

Read more about factors contributing to the changes in the post-acute marketplace and what it means for manufacturers, physicians, clinicians, patients, and post-acute facilities as they anticipate the transition to the second curve.

HSG helped the physicians and executives of St. Claire Regional in Morehead, Kentucky, define their shared vision for how the group would evolve over the next decade. As well as, develop the strategic and operational priorities which refocused and accelerated the group’s evolution.

The client was a nine-hospital health system with 14 clinics serving communities in a multi-state market with very limited access to care, poor economic conditions, high unemployment, and a heavy Medicare/Medicaid/uninsured payer mix. In most of these communities, the system was the sole source of care.
Though the clinics were of substantial size (they employed 98 physicians) and comprised of multiple specialists, the physicians functioned as individuals and the practices lacked any real group culture.

Clinical integration can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be, as this four-step road map for developing a CIN proves. Does it have to cost millions to initiate a clinical integration strategy?
Contrary to popular belief, we have clients who have generated substantial shared savings and a significant ROI over time, without massive investments. Yes, some financial capital is required for resources the CIN providers can’t bring to the table themselves. But the size of that investment can be miniscule relative to the value it produces: improved outcomes and documentation for payers.

Today’s concerns about physician compensation are the result of the changing healthcare environment. The transition to value is slow, but finally becoming a reality. Proactive hospitals want to ensure that provider incentives are properly aligned with ever-increasing value-based demands.
This report focuses on the three big questions HSG receives about adding value to physician compensation; Why are organizations redesigning their provider compensation plans? What elements and parameters must be part of successful compensation plans? How are organizations implementing compensation changes?

Revenue Cycle Management has become an even more complex issue with declining reimbursements, implementation of Electronic Health Records, evolving local carrier determinations (LCD), and payer credentialing [The emphasis on healthcare fraud, abuse and compliance has increased the importance of accuracy of data reporting and claims filing).
The efficiency of a medical practice’s billing operations has critical impact on the financial performance. In many cases, patient billings are the primary revenue source that pays staff salaries, provider compensation and overhead operating cost. Inefficiencies or inaccurate billing will contribute to operating losses.

This publication identifies and outlines the necessary characteristics of a fully-functioning clinically integrated network (CIN). What it doesn’t do is detail how hospitals and providers can participate in the value-based care environment during the development process.
One common misconception is that the CIN can’t do anything significant until it has obtained the FTC’s “clinically integrated” stamp of approval. While the network must satisfy the FTC’s definition of clinical integration before single signature contracting for FFS rates and contracts can legally start, hospitals and providers can enjoy three key benefits during the development process.

Nearly half of all Medicare beneficiaries treated in the hospital will need post-acute care services after discharge. For these patients, a stay in an inpatient rehabilitation facility, skilled nursing facility or other post-acute care setting comes between hospital and home.

With the proper process, tools, and feedback mechanisms in place, budgeting can be a valuable exercise for organizations while helping hold organizational leaders accountable. Having a proper monthly variance review process is one of the most critical factors in creating a more efficient and accurate budget. Monthly variance reporting puts parameters around what is to be expected during the upcoming budget entry process.

Managing the cost of patient care is the top strategic priority of most hospital CFOs today. As healthcare shifts to more data-driven decision making, having clear visibility into key volume, cost and profitability measures across clinical service lines is becoming increasingly important for both long-range and tactical planning activities. In turn, the cost accounting function in healthcare provider organizations is becoming an increasingly important and strategic function. This whitepaper includes five strategies for efficient and accurate cost accounting and service line analytics and keys to overcoming the associated challenges.